


Something to Come Back To

by ungoodpirate



Category: Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World
Genre: Christmas, Gen, Girl Meets Home for the Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 08:55:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2806787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ungoodpirate/pseuds/ungoodpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Can I tell you what you problem is, Shawnie?... You're so afraid to fail, you won't let yourself try." </p>
<p>Set during/after Girl Meets Home for the Holidays... late Christmas night, hot chocolate, memories about Eskimos, and advice between friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something to Come Back To

**Author's Note:**

> Didn't realize how much I missed Shawn Hunter until he was back on my TV.

Cory slipped out from under Topanga's arm and crept across the bedroom and out into the hall. The twinkle lights still gleamed from the Christmas tree, filling the living room with dim but pleasant multicolored lighting. It should have been enough for him to see Shawn sitting at the kitchen table, yet when Shawn greeted Cory with a quiet “hey”, Cory squawked in surprise.

Shawn snorted into the mug of whatever he had. "Some things never change." Cory clutched his shirt over his heart, and Shawn asked, "Why are you up?"

"It's Christmas. Can't sleep on Christmas," Cory said. "What about you? Couch not comfortable?"

"I've slept in less comfortable places," Shawn said with a shrug. He raised his mug. "The kettle's still hot, if you want hot chocolate."

"Ooo, hot chocolate." Cory giddy-clapped, and scurried to the stove.

"Still thinking about that stunt your daughter pulled," Shawn said as Cory clattered around with a mug and the cocoa mix. "You raised her well. She's as good as you."

Cory lifted his now-ready drink in salute. "King of schemes."

"Not what I meant," Shawn said, letting the alternate implications of the word 'good' hang there. He took a sip from his mug. "You have a nice life here, Cor.”

"You could have a life like this too," Cory said. "It's starts with you moving in upstairs and ends with you having your own munchkins to run around after."

"That's what your bird was trying to convince me of too," Shawn said, taking a gulp from his mug and feeling the heat more than tasting the flavor. "I just can't picture myself settling down... raising a family."

Cory was silent as he sipped his drink, then said, “Can I tell you what your problem is, Shawnie?”

“I don’t think I can stop you,” Shawn said, bemused.

“You’re so afraid to fail, that you won’t let yourself try.”

Shawn made a high-pitched noise in the back of his throat, pinching his lips to keep any other exclamations back. Can’t yell ‘check’ this time to try and get out of it. He couldn’t run away in just his socks and jammies.

Cory rounded the table and took a seat next to Shawn on the bench. “Remember when you tried to win the Superbowl tickets?” Cory asked.

“Yeah,” Shawn said. “I stayed up on a billboard for eight hours with an Eskimo. Then hitchhiked all the way to San Deigo.”

“You said something to me then, about yourself. You said, ‘People like me don’t go anywhere because they don’t think they can get there.’”

Shawn turned his mug around in his hands, the fading warmth of the ceramic against his palms, as he stared down at the cocoa like he could divine answers from it.

“You used to think you couldn’t get into college,” Cory said. He whacked Shawn lightly on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Look at you now, a college graduate with a successful career.”

Shawn smirked. “It’s hard to believe,” he admitted with chagrin.

“Believe it, Shawnie. It’s your life!” Cory said. “Look, you can practice with my kids.”

Shawn stared at the Christmas tree until the lights started to blur his vision and he was forced to blink. “Why are we talking about kids already? I don’t even have a girlfriend.”

Cory huffed and set his mug on the table behind him. “One thing I know for certain, it’s not hard for Shawn Hunter to find a girlfriend.”

“One that matters though?” Shawn said with a propped up eyebrow. “My last long term relationship ended over fifteen years ago.”

“Because Angela moved to Europe,” Cory said with a splay of his arms. “Not because you didn’t love each other. Not because you had irreparable differences. Because, and only because, of the Atlantic Ocean.”

Shawn drained his mug and wished for more so he could keep drinking instead of talking. But of course he knew coming to stay with Cory would lead to introspection on Shawn’s life, sometime or another.

“You’re really serious about this, Cor?” he said.

Softer-voiced, Cory answered, “You know I think about you and Angela like you always thought about me and Topanga.”

“Meant to be,” Shawn supplied.

“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” Cory said.

Shawn gave his best friend a particularly skeptical look and said deliberately, “Ha.”

“Alright, I do,” Cory said. “But I know you won’t do anything you don’t want to do.”

“So you’re convincing me that I want it?”

“Exactly.”

Shawn sighed, but he wasn’t tired or annoyed or anything of the sort. He missed this. Bantering with Cory, and the warmth of Christmas and being with people who knew you and cared. Shawn had met many a fascinating person on the road, exploring the country, writing, and taking photographs. The world was big and mysterious and exciting. Shawn had only ventured into a small pocket of it really, a segment of North America. Yet in all the traversing, Shawn found that the best people were right where he left them. And he did leave them, with an intention, because if he left first then they couldn’t leave him behind.

So afraid to fail…

“You really think I should try again with Angela?” Shawn said, because all Cory had said of her was true.

“If you want to,” Cory said. “She’s on facebook.” No excuses that Shawn couldn’t find her then. “Maybe just talk to her so you can get closure. Maybe go out and find someone new. Or forget that and go straight to adopting. I don’t know. It’s your life, Shawn. I just don’t want you to miss out on having things because you don’t think you deserve them.”

Shawn swallowed at the nothing in his mouth as his throat clogged. Voice chocked, he said, “Cory,” and nothing more.

Cory settled one of his big hands on Shawn’s shoulder. “Yeah?”

“I do… want it.” Which was what Riley had called him out on, but it was different, to admit something aloud, then just to hear it and let it sink into you.

Cory grinned. They sat for a while, until Shawn stood and crossed the room. He tweaked the stockings hung on the wall, the one for Riley and one for Auggie.

“Now that I said it… I don’t even know where to start,” Shawn said.  

“The first part of settling down is, well, settling down. In one place. Preferably near here.”

“I love my job though,” Shawn said.

Cory must’ve followed Shawn across the room because next he spoke, his voice was louder. “There’s plenty of places to write about in New York. And to take pictures of.”

There was no lie in that. With his years of experience and portfolio of work, Shawn could probably find a decent writing job anywhere he wanted. Which was intimidating with options, and surreal.  

“In all the times you ran away when we were young, or tried to, how many times did I stop you or at least get you to come back.”

Shawn turned and answered, “Every time.”

“Except once,” Cory said. He pointed his finger as he drew out the date. “December 8th, thirteen years ago, when you left New York.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Cor. Your daughter had just been born. You’ve had a family to take care of all this time.”

Cory stepped forward. “You’re my family too.”

Shawn’s heard it before, more than once, from more than one of the Matthews, but it still managed to feel like warm soup in his stomach on a cold night.

“The one time I didn’t stop you,” Cory said, “And you were gone for thirteen years.” Not a permanent thirteen years. There were postcards and phone calls and sporadic visits to this very New York apartment and the ones that came before it. That was the same as the other time Shawn successfully ran, after his father’s death. Visiting is not the opposite of running away. It’s just a way to make people overlook how gone you are.

“It’s time I stop myself,” Shawn said. He loved Cory and appreciated everything he had done for him. Family or not, best friends or not, they were both adults. Cory had more pressing matters, named Riley and Auggie, than making sure Shawn got his life together.

“I’m thirty five years old,” Shawn said.  “It’s time I… stop being my own biggest Eskimo.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Cory said.

They share a brief hug. Cory yawned and wandered back to bed. Shawn sat again on the couch, mind still whirring behind his tired eyes.

The thing about running away is that it means that there is something you left behind. If you’re lucky, you can come back to it. Right now, what Shawn has to come to is a welcome place on the couch of someone else’s home, as dear to him as those someone elses are.

Shawn wanted his own thing to come back to.

  


End file.
